Antiques Roadshow

Sarah Fathera of San Diego pushed a 4-by-5-foot painting of George Washington onto the Antiques Roadshow set to get the artwork appraised. The painting belongs to her father, Karl Behnke, who was curious of the age. It was appraised at $500 but not considered an antique.
— David Brooks

Sarah Fathera of San Diego pushed a 4-by-5-foot painting of George Washington onto the Antiques Roadshow set to get the artwork appraised. The painting belongs to her father, Karl Behnke, who was curious of the age. It was appraised at $500 but not considered an antique.
— David Brooks

Appraisers David Lackey, left, and Nicholas Dawes evaluate an 18th century ceramic statuette before filming their segment for the Antiques Roadshow in San Diego.
— David Brooks

Appraisers David Lackey, left, and Nicholas Dawes evaluate an 18th century ceramic statuette before filming their segment for the Antiques Roadshow in San Diego.
— David Brooks

Anne Ingelbrinke, European furniture appraiser for Christie's in New York, points out the markings that identify this French commode as being from from the 1700s. She appraised it at between $5,000 and $8,000.
— David Brooks

Anne Ingelbrinke, European furniture appraiser for Christie's in New York, points out the markings that identify this French commode as being from from the 1700s. She appraised it at between $5,000 and $8,000.
— David Brooks

Musical instrument appraiser Andrew Dipper holds an 18th Century violin while using a computer to verify its origin
— David Brooks

Musical instrument appraiser Andrew Dipper holds an 18th Century violin while using a computer to verify its origin
— David Brooks

Pat Welsh took a painting of her grandmother to "Antiques Roadshow" mostly for fun and learned it's worth a lot more than she thought it was. She gets the word here from art expert Peter Fairbanks.
Copyright Jeffrey Dunn

Jeff Koehler displays a lyric sheet for "Stormy Weather," which was co-written by his grandfather. An expert valued it at $50,000 to $75,000.
/ Jeff Dunn for WGBH

Beginning tonight, the weekly televised treasure hunt known as “Antiques Roadshow” shines its folksy spotlight on San Diego for three straight Mondays. Expect a familiar mixture of history and mystery.

And maybe a few more dropped jaws than usual — on both sides of the appraisals.

Almost 10 million people tune in for each episode of “Roadshow,” where everyday people bring in their heirlooms, their swap-meet finds, their weird knickknacks. Experts from Christie’s, Sotheby’s and the like tell them what the items are, and what they’re worth.

Jackpot or junk?

In the San Diego episodes, filmed last June at the Convention Center, it’s all jackpot. Viewers will see one painting, thought by its owner to be worth $4,500, appraised at $250,000 to $300,000. They’ll see a Turkish rug that was pulled out of the trash valued at $125,000 to $150,000. And they’ll get a look at the original handwritten lyric sheet for the great jazz standard “Stormy Weather” — cool on its own as a cultural artifact, cooler still for being worth $50,000 to $75,000.

The experts gush, too. which doesn’t happen often on the show. Several refer to objects as among the finest or most valuable they’ve ever seen: an 1870s carving from Africa ($10,000 to $15,000); a pre-1900 “salesman’s sample” miniature of a doctor’s exam table ($15,000 to $18,000); a two-volume set of botanical drawings from the 1600s ($250,000 to $300,000).

So much for the reputation of Southern California — or at least this corner of it — as a place for just the shiny and the new.

Now in its 15th year, “Roadshow” is the highest-rated prime-time series on public television. It’s become something of pop-culture touchstone, well-known enough to be spoofed in recent commercials for beer and car insurance.

Its popularity is easy to understand, tapping deeply as it does into several veins of American life: our fondness for stuff, our fascination with family lore and history, our delight at getting bargains, especially something for nothing.

On tonight’s episode, the biggest appraisal goes to the painting Welsh owns. In a phone interview, she said it’s of her late grandmother, Lady Hattie Fisher-Smith, a philanthropist who believed the key to happiness was helping other people. It was painted in Yorkshire, England, in 1907 by Robert Henri, who would later go on to start the influential art movement known as “The Ashcan School.”

Welsh, a prominent local gardening writer, has owned the painting since the 1960s and it’s hung on various walls in her home. She had it appraised several decades ago and was told it was of limited value because of the subject matter and because it was a commissioned piece, not something Henri chose to paint. Estimated worth: about $4,500, which is what Welsh’s grandfather paid the artist to paint it.